Eucalyptus regnans, known variously as mountain ash, swamp gum, or stringy gum, is a species of Eucalyptus native to Tasmania and the state of Victoria in southeastern Australia. It is the tallest flowering plant and one of the tallest trees in the world, second to the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). A straight-trunked tree with smooth grey bark and a stocking of rough brown bark to 5–20 metres (16–66 ft) above the ground, it regularly grows to 85 metres (279 ft), with the tallest living specimen, the Centurion, standing 99.82 metres (327.5 feet) tall in Tasmania. The white flowers appear in autumn. Victorian botanist Ferdinand von Mueller described the species in 1871.

Eucalyptus regnans grows in pure stands in tall wet forest, sometimes with rainforest understorey, in temperate areas receiving over 1,200 millimetres (47 in) rainfall a year on deep loam soils. Many of these have been logged, including trees higher than trees of any species now living—one specimen recorded at over 132 metres (433 ft) in Victoria. Killed by bushfire, Eucalyptus regnans regenerates from seed and has a lifespan of several hundred years. Mature Eucalyptus regnans-dominated forests have been found to store more carbon than any other forest known. Also known in the timber industry as Tasmanian oak, E. regnans is logged for its wood and grown in plantations in New Zealand and Chile as well as Australia.

Victorian Botanist Ferdinand von Mueller described Eucalyptus regnans in 1871,[1] using the Latin regnans "ruling" as its species epithet.[2] He noted, "This species or variety, which might be called Eucalyptus regnans, represents the loftiest tree in British Territory." However, until 1882 he considered the tree to be a variety of Eucalyptus amygdalina and called it thus,[3] not using the binomial name Eucalyptus regnans until the Systematic Census of Australian Plants in 1882,[4] and giving it a formal diagnosis in 1888 in Volume 1 of the Key to the System of Victorian Plants, where he describes it as "stupendously tall".[5] Von Mueller did not designate a type specimen, nor did he use the name Eucalyptus regnans on his many collections of "White Mountain Ash" at the Melbourne Herbarium. Victorian botanist Jim Willis selected a lectotype in 1967, one of the more complete collections of a specimen from the Dandenong Ranges, that von Mueller had noted was one "of the tall trees measured by Mr D. Boyle in March 1867."[3]

Genetic testing across its range of chloroplast DNA by Paul Nevill and colleagues yielded 41 haplotypes, divided broadly into Victorian and Tasmanian groups, but also showing distinct profiles for some areas such as East Gippsland, northeastern and southeastern Tasmania, suggesting the species had persisted in these areas during the Last Glacial Maximum and recolonised others. There was some sharing of haplotype between populations of the Otway Ranges and northwestern Tasmania, suggesting this was the most likely area for gene flow between the mainland and Tasmania in the past.[6]

Eucalyptus regnans is widely known as the mountain ash, due to the resemblance of its wood to that of the northern hemisphere ash (Fraxinus). Swamp gum is a name given to it in Tasmania, and stringy gum in northern Tasmania.[2] Other common names include white mountain ash, giant ash, stringy gum, swamp gum and Tasmanian oak.[1] Von Mueller called it the "Giant gum-tree" and "Spurious blackbutt" in his 1888 Key to the System of Victorian Plants.[5] The timber has been known as "Tasmanian oak", since early settlers likened the strength of its wood that of English oak (Quercus robur).[7]

The brown barrel (Eucalyptus fastigata) is a close relative, the two sharing the rare trait of paired inflorescences arising from axillary buds. Botanist Ian Brooker classified the two in the seriesRegnantes.[2] The latter species differs in having brown fibrous bark all the way up its trunk, and was long classified as a subspecies of E. regnans.[8] The series lies in the sectionEucalyptus of the subgenusEucalyptus within the genus Eucalyptus.[9]

Hybridisation with messmate (Eucalyptus obliqua) is not uncommon and has been recorded from several sites in Victoria and Tasmania.[8] Hybrids with red stringybark (Eucalyptus macrorhyncha) occur in the Cathedral Range in Victoria. These trees resemble E. regnans in appearance though lack the paired inflorescences. They have the oil composition of E. macrorhyncha.[10]

An evergreentree, Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of the eucalypts, growing to 70–114.4 m (230–375 ft), with a straight, grey trunk, smooth-barked except for the rough basal 5–20 metres (16–66 ft).[11] Mature trees have long strips of bark hanging from the trunk.[12] The trunk typically reaches a diameter of 2.5 metres (8 ft) at breast height (dbh),[2] and eventually develops a large buttress.[12] Some individuals attain much greater diameter; the largest known being "The Bulga Stump", a charred remnant near Tarra Bulga, South Gippsland district, Victoria, Australia which as a living tree had a DBH (diameter at breast height) of 35' 4" (10.74 metres),[13][14] making Eu. regnans the third thickest species of tree after the Baobab (Adansonia digitata) and the Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum). As a consequence of being both the tallest and thickest Australian trees, Eu. regnans is also the most massive; that title being currently held by an individual called the "Kermandie Queen" discovered 2.4 miles (4 km) west of Geeveston, Tasmania which measures 252' 7" (77 metres) in height and has a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 22' 7" (21.65 metres girth).[15] The crown is open and small in relation to the size of the rest of the tree.[2]Arranged alternately along the stems,[9] the adult leaves are falcate (sickle-shaped) to lanceolate, 9–14 centimetres (3.5–5.5 in) long and 1.5–2.5 centimetres (0.6–1.0 in) broad, with a long acuminate apex and smooth margin, green to grey-green with a reddish petiole.[11] The upper and lower surfaces of the leaves are the same colour, and are dotted with numerous circular or irregularly-shaped tiny oil glands. Secondary leaf veins arise at an acute angle from the midvein and tertiary venation is sparse.[16]

The flowers are produced in clusters of 9–15 together, each flower about 1 centimetre (0.4 in) diameter with a ring of numerous white stamens. These appear between January and May.[9][11] On 4–7 millimetres (0.16–0.28 in) long pedicels,[9] the fruit is a capsule 5–9 millimetres (0.20–0.35 in) long and 4–7 millimetres (0.16–0.28 in) broad.[17] Roughly cone-shaped, it has a disc at the base. The disc usually has three valves, which open to release the 1.5–3 millimetres (0.059–0.118 in) brown seed. The hilum is at one end of the pyramid-shaped seed.[9]

Seedlings have kidney shaped cotyledons,[9] and the first 2-3 pairs of leaves are oppositely arranged along the stem, before switching to an alternate arrangement. These juvenile leaves are 5–13 centimetres (2.0–5.1 in) long and 2.5–4.5 centimetres (1.0–1.8 in) broad and ovate in shape.[2]

Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants, although no living specimens can make that claim. The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 99.82 metres (327.5 feet) tall in Tasmania.[18][19] Before the discovery of Centurion, the tallest known specimen was Icarus Dream, which was rediscovered in Tasmania in January, 2005 and is 97 metres (318 ft) high. It was first measured by surveyors at 98.8 metres (324 ft) in 1962 but the documentation had been lost.[20]
A total of 16 living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 90 metres (300 ft).[21] The Cumberland Scenic Reserve near Cambarville, became the site of Victoria's tallest trees, in 1939, including one measured at 92 metres high, following the extensive Black Friday bushfires. A severe storm in 1959 blew down 13 of the trees and the tallest tree was reduced to a height of 84 metres after it lost part of its crown. The height of this tree was cited as 81.5 metres in 2002 following further storm damage in 1973.[22] In 2000, a tree at Wallaby Catchment in Kinglake National Park was discovered to be 91.6 metres (301 ft) tall in 2000,[22] however it perished in the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009.[23]

Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres (435 ft), found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872. This record is often disputed as unreliable, despite first-hand documentary evidence of it being measured on the ground with surveyor's tape by a senior forestry official (see below). Widespread agreement exists, however, that an exceptionally tall individual was reliably measured at 112.8 metres (370 ft) by theodolite in 1880 by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at Thorpdale, Victoria (the tree is known both as the Cornthwaite or Thorpdale Tree). When it was felled in 1881, Cornthwaite remeasured it on the ground by chain at 114.3 metres (375 ft).[24] The stump is commemorated with a plaque. That tree was about 1 metre shorter than Hyperion, the world's current tallest living tree, a coast redwood measuring 379.1 feet (115.5 m).[25]

Al Carder, notes that in 1888 a cash reward of 100 pounds was offered there for the discovery of any tree measuring more than 122 metres (400 ft).[24] The fact that such a considerable reward was never claimed is taken as evidence that such large trees did not exist. Carder's historical research, however, revealed that the reward was offered under conditions that made it highly unlikely to be collected. First, it was made in the depths of winter and applied only for a very short time. Next, the tree had to be measured by an accredited surveyor. Since loggers had already taken the largest trees from the most accessible Victorian forests, finding very tall trees then would have demanded an arduous trek into remote wilderness and at considerable altitude. In turn, that meant that searchers also needed the services of experienced bushmen to be able to guide them and conduct an effective search. Only one expedition actually penetrated one of the strongholds of E. regnans at Mount Baw Baw but its search was rendered ineffectual by cold and snow and managed to measure only a single living tree — the New Turkey Tree: 99.4 metres (326 ft) — before appalling conditions forced a retreat, Carder notes.

Ferdinand von Mueller, claimed to have personally measured one tree near the headwaters of the Yarra River at 122 metres (400 ft). Nurseryman David Boyle, claimed in 1862 to have measured a fallen tree in a deep gully in the Dandenongs at 119.5 metres (392 ft), and with a diameter at its broken tip that indicated it might have lost another eight metres of trunk when it broke, for 128 metres (420 ft).[24][26]

Von Mueller's early records also mention two trees on the nearby Black Spur Range, one alive and measuring 128 metres (420 ft) and another fallen tree said to measure 146 metres (479 ft), but these were either based on hearsay or uncertain reliability. David Boyle also reported that a tree at Cape Otway measured 170 metres (560 ft), but this too was based on hearsay.

None, however, had been verified by direct documentation until 1982 when Ken Simpendorfer, a Special Projects Officer for the Forests Commission Victoria, directed a search of official Victorian archives. It unearthed a forgotten report from more than a century earlier, one that had not been referred to in other accounts of the species up to that time. It was written on 21 February 1872, by the Inspector of State Forests, William Ferguson, and was addressed to the Assistant Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, Clement Hodgkinson. Ferguson had been instructed to explore and inspect the watershed of the Watts River and reported trees in great number and exceptional size in areas where loggers had not yet reached. He wrote: "In one instance I measured with a tape line one huge specimen that lay prostrate across a tributary of the Watts, and found it to be 435 ft [133 m] from its root to the top of its trunk. At 5 feet from the ground it measures 18 feet in diameter, and at the extreme end where it has broken in its fall, it is 3 feet in diameter. This tree has been much burnt by fire, and I fully believe that before it fell it must have been more than 500 ft [150 m] high. As it now lies, it forms a complete bridge across a deep ravine."[24]

It is also possible that individual trees will again attain such heights. Author Bob Beale has recorded that the tallest trees in the Black Spur Range now measure about 85 metres (279 ft) but — due to major bushfires in the 1920s and 30s — are less than 80 years old and have been growing consistently at the rate of about one metre a year.[27]

A Eucalyptus regnans stand in the Orokonui Ecosanctuary near Dunedin, New Zealand (where E. regnans is an introduced species) contains that country's tallest measured tree, standing 80.5 metres high in 2012.[28]
A Eucalyptus regnans in Greytown, New Zealand was measured at 107 feet in 2011 and its details can be found in the Notable Tree Register of New Zealand.[29]

Eucalyptus regnans occurs in cool, mostly mountainous areas to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) altitude with high rainfall of over 1,200 millimetres (47 in) per year. In Victoria, stands of tall trees are found in the Otway, Dandenong, Yarra and Strzelecki ranges as well as Mount Disappointment and East Gippsland.,[22] However, the distribution is much reduced. Most of the E. regnans forest across Gippsland was cleared for farmland between 1860 and 1880, and in the Otway Ranges between 1880 and 1900, while severe bushfires hit in 1851, 1898 and 1939.[8] In Tasmania, E. regnans is found in the Huon and Derwent River valleys in the southeast of the state.[2]

In the Otways, the species is found in wet forest in pure stands or growing in association with mountain grey gum ( Eucalyptus cypellocarpa), messmate (E. obliqua) and Victorian blue gum (E. globulus subsp. bicostata).[30] Other trees it grows with include manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis), shining gum (E. nitens), myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii) and silver wattle (Acacia dealbata)[2] The mountain ash-dominated forest can be interspersed with rainforest understory, with such species as southern sassafras (Atherosperma moschatum), celery-top pine (Phyllocladus aspleniifolius), leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida) and horizontal (Anodopetalum biglandulosum).[31] The mountain ash is most suited to deep friable clay loam soils, often of volcanic origin; in areas of poorer soils, it can be confined to watercourses and valleys.[2] The species grows very quickly, at more than a metre a year, and can reach 65 metres (213 ft) in 50 years, with an average life-span of 400 years. The fallen logs continue supporting a rich variety of life for centuries more on the forest floor.

The majority of the endangered Leadbeater’s possum population lives in mountain ash forests (Eucalyptus regnans, E. delegatensis and E. nitens) in the Central Highlands of Victoria. The possums use hollows in old trees for nesting and shelter and forage for arboreal arthropods under bark.[30] The vegetation structure of these forests enables the possums to travel through them.[30] Both Leadbeaters possums and yellow-bellied gliders feed on the sap from the trunks and branches.[32]Koalas feed on the foliage, though it is not one of their preferred forage species.[33]

The spur-legged phasmid (Didymuria violescens) is a leaf-eating insect that can defoliate trees during major infestations such as one experienced at Powelltown in the early 1960s.[22] Leaves and buds are eaten by the larvae and adults of the chrysomelid leaf beetle Chrysophtharta bimaculata.[37] Stressed trees can be damaged by the eucalyptus longhorned borer (Phoracantha semipunctata), which burrows into the trunk, which exudes a red stain. Eucalypt weevils of the genus Gonipterus commonly damage E. regnans, while the tortoise beetle (Paropsis atomaria) is a common pest of plantations.[38]

A study carried out by environmental scientist Professor Brendan Mackey of the Australian National University in 2009 identified that mountain ash forests in Victoria’s Central Highlands are the best in the world at locking up carbon.[39] Mackey and colleagues found the highest amount of carbon was contained in a forest located in the O'Shannassy River catchment, which held 1,867 tonnes of carbon per hectare. This area was a stand of unlogged mountain ash over 100 years old, which had had minimal human disturbance. They further calculated that a E. regnans-dominated forest with trees up to 250 years old and a well-established mid-storey and upper storey could store up to 2,844 tonnes of carbon per hectare.[40]

Eucalyptus regnans lacks a lignotuber and hence cannot recover by reshooting after intense fire. Instead, it can only regenerate by seed, and is thus termed an obligate seeder.[41] The seeds are released from their woody capsules (gumnuts) by heat and for successful germination the seedlings require a high level of light, much more than reaches the forest floor when there is a mature tree canopy. Severe fires can kill all the trees in a forest, prompting a massive release of seed to take advantage of the nutrients in the ash bed. Seedling densities of up to 2.5 million per hectare have been recorded after a major fire. Competition and natural thinning eventually reduces the mature tree density to about 30 to 40 individuals per hectare. Because it takes roughly 20 years for seedlings to reach sexual maturity, repeated fires in the same area can cause local extinctions. Trees that escape severe fire may have a lifespan exceeding 500 years.[31] Cool temperate rainforest species that live in association with Eucalyptus regnans may gradually replace it in gullies or other areas where the trees succumb to age rather than fire.[12]

Eucalyptus regnans is valued for its timber, and has been harvested in very large quantities. Aside from being logged in its natural range, it is grown in plantations in New Zealand and Chile, and to a limited extent, in South Africa and Zimbabwe.[38] Primary uses are sawlogging and woodchipping. It was a major source of newsprint in the 20th century. Much of the present woodchip harvest is exported to Japan. While the area of natural stands with large old trees is rapidly decreasing, substantial areas of regrowth exist and it is increasingly grown in plantations, the long, straight, fast growing trunks being much more commercially valuable than the old growth timber.[citation needed]

It is a medium weight timber (about 680 kg/m³) and rather coarse (stringy) in texture. Gum veins are common. The wood is easy to work and the grain is straight with long, clear sections without knots. The wood works reasonably well for steam-bending.
Primary uses for sawn wood are furniture, flooring (where its very pale blonde colour is highly prized), panelling, veneer, plywood, window frames, general construction. The wood has sometimes been used for wood wool and cooperage. However, the wood needs steam reconditioning for high value applications, due to a tendency to collapse on drying. This wood is highly regarded by builders, furniture makers and architects.[7]

Opposition to logging of wet forests by clearfelling has grown very strong in recent years (particularly opposition to woodchipping). It is a controversial debate with strong opinions both for and against timber harvesting.

Several applications have been made to Victoria's Flora and Fauna Guarantee (FFG) Scientific Advisory Committee to list mountain ash forests as an endangered vegetation community. The committee rejected an application in 2017 as being ineligible and that it did not satisfy at least one of the criterion set out in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and its Regulations of 2011. The assessment criteria included, was there a demonstrated state of decline, has there been a reduction in distribution or has vegetation community altered markedly.[43]

Studies conducted by Murray Cunningham and David Ashton found that the re-growth habit of Eucalyptus regnans requires high light conditions, and the high nutrients contained in the ash layer. These conditions are found typically following a high intensity wildfire, which are an infrequent, yet periodic feature of mountain ash forests. For this reason clearfelling - with the complete removal of all trees, followed by a high intensity fire and seeding are used by the timber industry and forest scientists to ensure regeneration of harvested areas because it mimics the conditions found after high intensity wildfire.[44][45]

Water yields from catchments fall significantly for 20 to 40 years if trees are killed by bushfire or timber harvesting. The MMBW began research into forest cover on water supplies as early as 1948. In the early 1960s they set up a new series of paired catchment experiments in wet mountain forests near Healesville to measure the long term impacts of timber harvesting and bushfire on water quality and quantity. It took another 10 years for the results to emerge more clearly. It was found that while timber harvesting had an impact, the most dramatic threat to stream flows remained catastrophic bushfires like those on Black Friday in 1939 or Black Saturday in 2009.[47]

In 2018, some researchers concluded that Mountain Ash forests in Victoria represent a collapsing ecosystems. They coined the term 'hidden collapse' meaning an ecosystems that give a superficial appearance of being intact but has lost key elements. At their research sites they found that between 1997 and 2011, up to 50% of large old-cavity trees (trees with big holes that serve as nest sites for animals and birds) had been lost and there had also been a significant decline in the numbers of tree dwelling marsupials such possums and gliders and birds. They identified fast and slow drivers of change: fire, logging and climate change and indicated that Mountain Ash forests would be replaced with Acacia-dominated woodlands [48]

Logging Eucalyptus regnans in Tasmania

The Styx River in Tasmania runs through a forest of Eucalyptus regnans, myrtle beech and tree ferns. The mountain ash rise high above the forest.

"The Big Tree" (previously thought to be the tallest remaining), is about 15 metres around the base. The sign at its base states its dimensions and the tonnage of timber that could potentially be cut from it. A few such trees of extreme size have been recorded by Forestry Tasmania as worthy of preservation.

The stump of one of the largest Eucalyptus regnans to be logged in Tasmania. The man is 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in).

A very tall mountain ash by a logging road. Trees that have been identified as above the permissible height for logging are left isolated when the forest around them is logged. If reduced in height by storm, the tree becomes loggable.

Clearfelled old-growth forest of Eucalyptus regnans near the Styx Valley in southern Tasmania, prior to bull-dozing and burning.

Eucalyptus regnans is too large for the majority of gardens, but may be suitable for parks.[49] Propagation is from seed, with the best germination rates being obtained by refrigerating for three weeks before sowing.[50] Seed may be stored for several years if refrigerated and kept dry. Seedlings are grown in containers but are more prone to damping off than other eucalypts; they are highly susceptible to Phytophthora cinnamomi and P. nicotianae Young plants are generally planted out once they are 8 or 9 months old. These are at risk of being eaten by grazing rabbits, wallabies and possums, which can destroy young plantations in severe cases.[38]

American horticulturist and entrepreneur Ellwood Cooper noted its rapid growth but demanding soil requirements in his 1876 work Forest Culture and Eucalyptus Trees.[51]Eucalyptus regnans requires fertile soil with good drainage and annual rainfall of 1,000 millimetres (39 in) spread over the year, and has poor tolerance to temperatures below −7 °C (19 °F) or drought.[38]

Outside Australia, plantations have been successfully established in New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania.[52]

1.
Rowan
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The rowans or mountain-ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus Sorbus of the rose family Rosaceae. The name rowan was originally applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia and is used for other species in the Sorbus subgenus Sorbus. Rowans are unrelated to the ash trees, which belong to the genus Fraxinus, family Oleaceae. Formerly, when a variety of fruits were commonly eaten in Europe and North America. It is still used in countries, but Sorbus domestica, for example, is now all but extinct in Britain. Natural hybrids, often including Sorbus aucuparia and the whitebeam, Sorbus aria, the traditional names of the rowan are those applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia, Sorbus torminalis, and Sorbus domestica. The Latin name sorbus was borrowed into Old English as syrfe, the name service-tree for Sorbus domestica is derived from that name by folk etymology. The Latin name sorbus is from a root for red, reddish-brown, English sorb is attested from the 1520s in the fruit of the service tree. Sorbus domestica is also known as whitty pear, the adjective whitty meaning pinnate, Sorbus torminalis is also known as chequer tree, its fruits, formerly used to flavour beer, are called chequers, perhaps from the spotted pattern of the fruit. The name rowan is recorded from 1804, detached from an earlier rowan-tree, rountree, attested from the 1540s in northern dialects of English and Scots. It is from a North Germanic source, derived from Old Norse reynir, ultimately from the Germanic verb *raud-inan to redden, various dialectal variants of rowan are found in English, including ran, roan, rodan, royan, royne, round, rune. The Old English name of the rowan is cwic-beám, which survives in the name quickbeam, the Old Irish name is cairtheand, reflected in Modern Irish caorann. The arboreal Bríatharogam in the Book of Ballymote associates the rowan with the letter luis, with the gloss delightful to the eye is luis, i. e. rowan, owing to the beauty of its berries. Due to this, delight of the eye has been reported as a name of the rowan by some commentators, in the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, this species is commonly referred to as a dogberry tree. In German, Sorbus aucuparia is known as the Vogelbeerbaum or as Eberesche, the Welsh name criafol refers to the tree as lamenting fruit, associating the red fruit with the blood of Christ, as Welsh tradition believed the Cross was carved from the wood of this tree. Rowans are mostly deciduous trees 10–20 m tall, though a few are shrubs. The leaves are arranged alternately, and are pinnate, with 11–35 leaflets, the flowers are borne in dense corymbs, each flower is creamy white, and 5–10 mm across with five petals. The fruit is a small pome 4–8 mm diameter, bright orange or red in most species, the fruit are soft and juicy, which makes them a very good food for birds, particularly waxwings and thrushes, which then distribute the rowan seeds in their droppings

2.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate

3.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms

4.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower

5.
Eucalyptus
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Eucalyptus /ˌjuːkəˈlɪptəs/ LHeritier 1789 is a diverse genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus and most are native to Australia, one species, Eucalyptus deglupta, ranges as far north as the Philippines. Of the 15 species found outside Australia, just nine are exclusively non-Australian, species of eucalyptus are cultivated widely in the tropical and temperate world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, China, and the Indian subcontinent. However, the range over which many eucalypts can be planted in the zone is constrained by their limited cold tolerance. Australia is covered by 92,000,000 hectares of eucalypt forest, Eucalyptus is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as eucalypts, the others being Corymbia and Angophora. Many species, though by no means all, are known as gum trees because they exude copious kino from any break in the bark. The generic name is derived from the Greek words ευ well and καλύπτω to cover, Eucalyptus oil finds many uses like in aromatherapy, as a cure for joint pains. Eucalyptus trees show allelopathic effects, they release compounds which inhibit other plant species from growing nearby, on warm days, eucalyptus forests are sometimes shrouded in a smog-like mist of vaporised volatile organic compounds, the Australian Blue Mountains take their name from the haze. A mature eucalyptus may take the form of a low shrub or a large tree. The species can be divided into three main habits and four size categories, as a generalisation forest trees are single-stemmed and have a crown forming a minor proportion of the whole tree height. Woodland trees are single-stemmed, although they may branch at a distance above ground level. Many mallee trees may be so low-growing as to be considered a shrub, two other tree forms are notable in Western Australia and described using the native names mallet and marlock. The mallet is a small to medium-sized tree that does not produce lignotubers and has a long trunk. This is the habit of mature healthy specimens of Eucalyptus occidentalis, E. astringens, E. spathulata, E. gardneri, E. dielsii, E. forrestiana, E. salubris, E. clivicola. The smooth bark of mallets often has a satiny sheen and may be white, cream, grey, green, or copper. The term marlock has been used, in Forest Trees of Australia, it is defined as a small tree without lignotubers. They usually grow in more or less pure stands, clearly recognisable examples are stands of E. platypus, E. vesiculosa, and the unrelated E. stoatei

6.
Tasmania
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Tasmania is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 519,100, just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, Tasmanias area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2. Though an island state, due to an error the state shares a land border with Victoria at its northernmost terrestrial point, Boundary Islet. The Bishop and Clerk Islets, about 37 km south of Macquarie Island, are the southernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania, the island is believed to have been occupied by Aboriginals for 40,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Tasmanian Aboriginals were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of law, cost the lives of almost 1100 Aboriginals and settlers. The near-destruction of Tasmanias Aboriginal population has been described by historians as an act of genocide by the British. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed and the year the state received permission to change its name to Tasmania. In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia, the state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemens Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the name was later shortened to Van Diemens Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856, Tasmania was sometimes referred to as Dervon, as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879. The colloquial expression for the state is Tassie, Tasmania is also colloquially shortened to Tas, especially when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is also the Australia Post abbreviation for the state, the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago, much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the worlds largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains, the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are mostly dolerite. Mount Wellington above Hobart is an example, showing distinct columns known as the Organ Pipes

7.
Victoria (Australia)
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Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria

8.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia

9.
Sequoia sempervirens
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Sequoia sempervirens /sᵻˈkɔɪ. ə sɛmpərˈvaɪrənz/ is the sole living species of the genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae. Common names include coast redwood, coastal redwood and California redwood and it is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree living 1, 200–1,800 years or more. This species includes the tallest living trees on Earth, reaching up to 379 feet in height and these trees are also among the oldest living things on Earth. The name sequoia sometimes refers to the subfamily Sequoioideae, which includes S. sempervirens along with Sequoiadendron, here, the term redwood on its own refers to the species covered in this article, and not to the other two species. Scottish botanist David Don described the redwood as the evergreen taxodium in his colleague Aylmer Bourke Lamberts 1824 work A description of the genus Pinus, austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher erected the genus Sequoia in his 1847 work Synopsis coniferarum, giving the redwood its current binomial name of Sequoia sempervirens. The redwood is one of three living species, each in its own genus, in the subfamily Sequoioideae, molecular studies have shown the three to be each others closest relatives, generally with the redwood and giant sequoia as each others closest relatives. However, Yang and colleagues in 2010 queried the polyploid state of the redwood, further analysis strongly supported the hypothesis that Sequoia was the result of a hybridization event involving Metasequoia and Sequoiadendron. Thus, Yang and colleagues hypothesize that the inconsistent relationships among Metasequoia, Sequoia, the coast redwood can reach 115 m tall with a trunk diameter of 9 m. It has a crown, with horizontal to slightly drooping branches. The bark can be thick, up to 1-foot, and quite soft and fibrous, with a bright red-brown color when freshly exposed. The root system is composed of shallow, wide-spreading lateral roots, the leaves are variable, being 15–25 mm long and flat on young trees and shaded shoots in the lower crown of old trees. On the other hand, they are scale-like, 5–10 mm long on shoots in full sun in the crown of older trees. They are dark green above and have two blue-white stomatal bands below, leaf arrangement is spiral, but the larger shade leaves are twisted at the base to lie in a flat plane for maximum light capture. The species is monoecious, with pollen and seed cones on the same plant, the seed cones are ovoid, 15–32 millimetres long, with 15–25 spirally arranged scales, pollination is in late winter with maturation about 8–9 months after. Each cone scale bears three to seven seeds, each seed 3–4 millimetres long and 0.5 millimetres broad, the seeds are released when the cone scales dry out and open at maturity. The pollen cones are ovular and 4–6 millimetres long and its genetic makeup is unusual among conifers, being a hexaploid and possibly allopolyploid. Both the mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes of the redwood are paternally inherited, the prevailing elevation range is 98–2,460 ft above sea level, occasionally down to 0 and up to 3,000 ft. They usually grow in the mountains where precipitation from the incoming moisture off the ocean is greater, the tallest and oldest trees are found in deep valleys and gullies, where year-round streams can flow, and fog drip is regular

10.
Dandenong Ranges
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The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The ranges consist mostly of rolling hills, steeply weathered valleys and gullies covered in temperate rainforest, predominantly of tall Mountain Ash trees. After European settlement in the region, the range was used as a source of timber for Melbourne. The ranges were popular with day-trippers from the 1870s onwards, much of the Dandenongs were protected by parklands as early as 1882 and by 1987 these parklands were amalgamated to form the Dandenong Ranges National Park, which was added to again in 1997. The range experiences light to moderate snow falls a few times most years, today, the Dandenongs are home to over 100,000 residents and the area is popular amongst visitors, many of which stay for the weekend at the various Bed & Breakfasts through the region. The popular Puffing Billy Railway, a steam railway, runs through the southern parts of the Dandenongs. The etymology of the Dandenongs is a complicated one, two names have been used to refer to the ranges, Corhanwarrabul and Dandenong, both derived from the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people. It is suspected that the name Dandenong was applied to the ranges because Dandenong Creek originates there, however and it is not known where the name Dandenong came from nor what it means, or even its correct spelling, other variations include, Tanjenong, Tangynon and Bangeong. In any case, both names relate at least to watercourses in general, and not to mountains or ranges, so as the name Dandenong may not actually apply to anything in the immediate area, the relevance of the name Corhanwarrabul becomes apparent. Carhanwarrabul was the name for one of the two main summits, perhaps both or perhaps the entire range. The name applied to the summits and was in continued use up until around 1900. At any rate, Corhanwarrabul remains the most relevant name for the ranges to date, the range is the remains of an extinct volcano last active 373 million years ago. It consists predominantly of Devonian dacite and rhyodacite, the topography consists of a series of ridges dissected by deeply cut streams. Rainfall is fairly uniform through the year, tending to peak between April and October with lower rainfall during the months of January and February, the mean annual rainfall is between 1000 and 1500 mm, increasing with elevation and from west to east. Due to the elevation, fog is common in winter months, as a result of its elevation snow typically falls one or two times a year at higher elevations, mostly between the months of June and October. A rare summer snow occurred on Christmas Day 2006, the local region has experienced substantial warming in recent decades and heavy snowfalls which were once common have become rare. The last significant snowfall to affect the Dandenongs Ranges was on August 10,2008, a Bureau of Meteorology weather station sits at an elevation of 513 m in the Ferny Creek Reserve in the southern part of the Dandenongs Ranges. This weather station replaced one that was located on the summit of Dunns Hill

Diagram of secondary growth in a eudicot or coniferous tree showing idealised vertical and horizontal sections. A new layer of wood is added in each growing season, thickening the stem, existing branches and roots.

Tall herbaceousmonocotyledonous plants such as banana lack secondary growth, and are trees under the broadest definition.

Vein skeleton of a leaf. Veins contain lignin that make them harder to degrade for microorganisms.

Near the ground these Eucalyptus saplings have juvenile dorsiventral foliage from the previous year, but this season their newly sprouting foliage is isobilateral, like the mature foliage on the adult trees above